Old School Luggage

Nothing fancy, just some locally made fibreglass panniers from the '70's, but they work well for back road day trips or weekend. More ambitious trips and I fit the standard seat and 35 litre BMW panniers.

Posted elsewhere, but they seem to fit here too. I don't know who made the bags, but they work well and (IMHO) fit the bike nicely. On the Trans-Lab the ruts vibrated the mounting bolts right through the fibreglass, but it was an easy fix with couple of sticks and some zip-ties.

I think those Craven's are still my favorites. Don't find them available too often and when you do: $$$$$$
Seems that their mounting system was quite bizarre?

Click to expand...

The craven rack and mounting system may look quite odd but it was very tough and stood up to adventure type travelling very well, my Craven comets were bought in Australia were fitted on a 75/6 and ridden back to the UK, after a couple of years to earn some cash they went onto a R80/7 and went down through north and south america, in Equador the rack needed a bit of welding. The bike was sold in Bolivia, I sent the Cravens back to Australia where they were put on a R90/6 and punted around Australia. The other advantage of the comets was when you were camping, you could sit on them. The fibre glass was thick and if required they could be fixed in the field. Compared to the Krauser panniers that came out in the 70s, the Cravens felt and looked a bit crude, but they worked very well.

Since I'm currently unemployed with nothing better to do, I dragged the ol' XS650 out in the the chilly No. GA weather for some beauty shots (This is for you, Baza!):

The bags are surplus Swiss Army Ammo bags, I riveted a belt to the back and hold them on with nylon straps. Not hurricane proof, but hold my tool roll and a few odds and ends for my weekend travels. Most importantly, they give off the Sopwith Camel vibe my cranky bits & chunks bike deserves.

I'm not sure but those bags look similar to the stuff that Jimbo makes in Beijing.
He's got a pretty popular website and does some fantastic BMW/URAL/ChanJiang conversions over there.
And he's got a leathermaker too. Good looking stuff.

Another +1 for Cravens... I got in touch with original owner of my /5, He asked if I wanted the BM toolkit and panniers that had been in His garage since '75 (!), They even have the protective film still on the aluminium banding.. and all f.o.c., what a Guy